The Hamas surprise attack on Israel has been murderous and brutal. The Islamic supremacist death cult psychopaths have brutalized civilians in manners worthy of ISIS.
The Israeli official death toll as of this writing exceeds three hundred people killed, over 1000 wounded, and at least dozens taken hostage and kidnapped to Gaza. Palestinian civil society is ecstatic, with cheering crowds spitting on and defiling the bodies of the dead Israelis and tourists that have been dragged to Gaza.
Israel has no choice but to extract a massive toll on Hamas and other terror groups who also participated. This is not going to be like prior conflicts, such as in 2014, where there was fighting but everyone knew from the start the fighting was over the terms of the ceasefire. Israel was content to leave Hamas in power, viewing the barbarians as the lesser of evils among the many Palestinian terror groups. That will change.
The carnage and savagry will require Israel to decapitate Hamas. The old normal has to change.
The hostages held in Gaza will not be recovered alive unless Israel gives major concessions and leaves Hamas in power. While of course Israel wants to get them back alive, Israeli military options are severely constrained if that is the goal. Hamas has grown comfortable taking hostages and using them as shields to temper Israeli military responses. The goals of toppling Hamas and getting the hostages back alive are not consistent. Israel faces a tough choice.
Hamas prepares for these conflicts with international media and political opinion in mind. Western academics, purported "human rights" groups, and pundits, are an important part of Hamas' war effort. Hamas deliberately locates rocket launchers and other military assets in and among civilians, knowing that dead Gaza civilians serve a military purpose - to grow international pressure on Israel to hold back. The international media will mindlessly cite "Gaza health officials" without mentioning Hamas runs the Gaza health ministry and regularly lies about casualties as part of the war effort.
We covered this tactic in the summer 2014 conflict, including how the main Gaza al-Shifa hospital served as a Hamas military facility and its parking lot as a rocket firing location. Given what we expect will happen in the coming weeks, it's worth running the post again,
Hamas hides in, under and around Gaza’s main hospital, and the media covers it up (Video).
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There have been reports for years that Hamas uses the main hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, as a headquarters.
It reportedly has
bunkers underneath, and uses the hospital itself.
There have been tidbits of media reporting on Hamas' use of Al-Shifa as a
de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.
But mostly it has been covered up by reporters in Gaza, as I detailed in
Media cover-up of Hamas crimes starting to unravel. Tweets have been deleted and articles taken down by reporters for major publications.
One
Italian reporter who left Gaza blew the whistle on the fact that it was Hamas or Islamic Jihad misfired rockets that cause a large number of deaths in a refugee camps. The victims were transported to Al-Shifa, where another rocket had already hit. A
Wall Street Journal reporter tweeted, then deleted, his observation that it was a Hamas rocket that hit the hospital.
Once the evidence became clear that Israel was not responsible, the media moved on, as if it never happened.
The media has a narrative it wants to tell, and that narrative does not include the deaths, injuries and damage Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others are causing.
Here is a good example of how the media played up an Israeli missile striking near Western reporters:
